


No I in Team

by leupagus, sutlers



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:31:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/pseuds/leupagus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sutlers/pseuds/sutlers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which no one on Five-0 wants to act out military-themed gangbang porno. Sadly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [No I In Team](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7776331) by [pakadoge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pakadoge/pseuds/pakadoge)



> Let the record state clearly that sutlers started it, and all the funniest lines are hers. waketosleep deserves some credit, and mecurtin really started the whole ball rolling. So it's not totally my fault!

They're in the middle of a high-speed chase (more because Steve's bored and the drug runners are driving a nice car than because they need to, not that Steve's listening to Danny point this out) when Steve's phone rings. Not unusual, but Steve looks at the Caller ID and actually swears.

Steve's a soldier and a sailor, through and through; Danny's watched him stare blankly at suggestions that maybe he doesn't _need_ to go for a five mile run and a three mile swim every single day, watched him reload a mag _with his teeth_ after somebody shot him through his left palm. But Steve doesn't swear, ever; it's a little unsettling but Danny's gotten used to it, even grown to appreciate it because God knows he's had to learn how to say "freaking" and "fudge" in place of the words he used right up until three-year-old Grace stubbed her toe and said "fucking ass shitpoop!"

So it's a big deal when McGarrett lets a "goddammit" loose, and Danny can't help but listen in when Steve answers and says, "What the fuck do you want, asswipe?"

There's a long conversation after that, which Danny doesn't get to enjoy because it means Steve's cornering _goat tracks_ on two wheels with one hand and the Camaro doesn't exactly turn like it's on greased rails. Steve's side of the conversation is mostly, "Fuck no," and "No, fuck you, fucking _no_ ," with variations ranging from, "I fucking told you _no_ , what the fuck," to "You're a fucking piece of shit, _no_." It ends with, "I hope you rot in hell, you fuckface," and Steve hanging up and tucking the phone back in his pocket.

Danny's kind of distracted from the life-threatening car chase, he can't lie. "Fuckface?" he tries.

Steve grins at him, _grinning_ , looking happy and excited and like it's another great day of nailing the bad guys and maybe having a luau or something later. "What're you doing next weekend?" he asks.

"Grace," Danny answers, reflexive, and narrows his eyes at the way Steve blows out air like he's relieved. " _Why_ , are you planning blowing something up, were those criminals on the phone and you were arranging for some sort of playdate without adult--"

"Playdate?"

"Whatever, who was that and _why did you swear_?"

Steve shrugs. "Uh, some... people. From my old unit. They're--" He pauses to pull out his gun and check the clip before slamming on the brakes and rolling out of the car. "Come on."

Danny realizes the Porsche ahead of them has done what Danny'd thought Steve would do and tumbled off the edge of the road. And that's the last he thinks about it, because in a contest between what's more important, catching the drug runners or interrogating Steve on his newly-discovered potty mouth, Danny's going with Door Number One.

In hindsight, that was stupid.

***

"God damn, McGarrett, this is a nice fucking office," someone says, "are you nailing the governor of Hawaii or something?"

"Fuck you, Sikes," Steve says, but there's laughter in his voice.

"It's okay," someone else says. "We've seen pictures. She's—" There's a pause, then more laughter and catcalling. Danny rounds the corner just as Steve is stumbling forward because of a backslap from one of the biggest, baldest guys Danny has ever seen; two other guys flank them, one in a beat-up cowboy hat and the other in a plaid shirt and currently in the middle of doing that thing with his tongue Danny hasn't seen anyone do in public with that much gusto since pledge week on Frat Row.

"Hi honey, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" Danny says, crossing his arms.

"Danno!" Steve chokes. "Um, Danny. Hey."

"Hello, Danny," Cowboy says, tipping his hat.

"Quiet," Steve says, shoving him. "Danny, D'Tonio Sikes, Charlie Aguilar, and Andy Ostrovski," pointing to Cowboy, the Rock, and Mr. Cunnilingus in turn. "Navy SEAL Team Six. Guys, Detective Danny Williams."

"De _tec_ tive," Cunnilingus—Andy, Andy, Danny thinks—croons, rolling the word around in his mouth like it's something dirty.

"Nice to meet you," Charlie rumbles, sticking his hand out. Danny eyes it with trepidation but he comes away with all his fingers intact. Charlie's smile is wide and very white.

"Have you been keeping our princess out of trouble?" D'Tonio asks.

"Okay, yes," Steve says loudly. "Guys, give me a minute. _Danny_."

"Do they all have cute little nicknames too?" Danny asks as Steve herds him into the closest office—Chin's—and closes the door.

"What? No, Danny, _listen_ , what are you doing here on anyway?"

"Rachel wanted Grace for some super-secret mother-daughter bonding thing, I don't know, I'm getting her next weekend. I thought I'd come in and finish some of that paperwork."

"That's—" Steve hesitates. "Really sad, Danno."

"I find it relaxing, actually."

"Relaxing?"

"It's like a word game, how many euphemisms for ludicrous property damage can I come up with?"

"Well, you do have a pretty extensive vocabulary," Steve says, and Danny sighs before gesturing pointedly at the three guys watching them avidly through the window. Steve looks up and grimaces, then turns back to Danny and makes the face, the sheepish one he gets when he knows he should wait for a warrant but he's just shot the lock open and there's no point waiting around outside after that, really.

Danny can feel a headache building already. "Okay, what."

"I was going to call the team to meet up later, maybe tomorrow, after we're done with the -- thing," he finishes, lame and Danny might be seeing Steve _embarrassed_ , for the first time ever.

"The long-pause _thing_?" he echoes, his hands curling up into quotation marks. "You're going to have to expand on that for me."

"Uh, they're -- basically a team member died and there's this thing that we're doing and yeah, that's why they're here."

"One of your old unit died?" Danny's kind of torn between feeling like a schmuck for not knowing and being pissed at Steve for not telling. "When? What happened? Are you--" Steve will never be okay, because Steve is a walking Molotov cocktail, but it only takes a second for Danny to come up with, "Sad? Or mad?"

Steve squints at him. "You do this a lot better with witnesses, you know that?"

"Excuse me very much, but part of being a great detective is knowing who you're talking to. I am talking to you," Danny explains, gesturing helpfully, "And you're kind of a robot on your best and brightest days, and I figure, using the equivalent of smiley-face emoticon emotions is probably the best way to find out if you're going to go drunken skydiving with your buddies in order to mourn."

"That's -- a fair point," Steve mutters.

"So who was the guy, anyway? I mean, classified, whatever, but -- I don't know, were you close?"

For some reason this gets Steve doing the nearest thing to smiling since he dragged Danny in here. "You could say he was everybody's best friend."

The window rattles—Andy is banging on it and D'Tonio shouts, "Are you done buttering up your girlfriend in there, McGarrett, I thought were gonna light Motherfucker on fire and some shit."

"Your friend's nickname was Motherfucker?" Danny's aware that there's something wrong with him that he's hung up on the nickname, and not the apparent plan to set a corpse on fire. "Okay, so, is there a dress code for the funeral or what, I'll call Chin and Kono and--"

"What, no," Steve protests, lunging for the phone on Danny's desk. "You don't -- you shouldn't have to see this."

"Steve," Danny says, "I know this is weird for you, but your new team, even though we're not as--" Danny waves at the window where Charlie seems to be picking Andy's nose and examining it thoughtfully before wiping it on Andy's shirt, "Yeah, that, we'd like to be there for you in your time of, whatever this is going to turn out to be."

"This is going to turn out to be--" Steve glances at the window and makes the exact same face Danny remembers his dad making that Thanksgiving when he brought his boss home and Jenn and Matty were pretending to be Captain Underoo and Wonder Panties in the middle of the living room. "Look, just — I love these guys like brothers and there's almost no one I'd rather have at my back, but trust me, they're crazy."

"Crazy," Danny says. Steve nods sagely. "You are telling me that those guys are crazy. You. _You_." Danny shakes his head. "This I have to see."

"I'd like the record to show that I warned you," Steve says.

***

They're fucking crazy.

Steve tells him to meet up at the house in a couple hours and then disappears with Snap Crackle and Pop, leaving Danny to call Kono and Chin. Danny's used to being the mom -- he's been the mom since he was about five -- but it's still annoying as fuck to be the type of person who calls Kono back after telling her about the cremation type ceremony they're apparently going to after they, what, have a drink at Steve's? to ask if she's got a dry-cleaned uniform. "Oh my God," Kono says, "Is that you, Mama, don't go toward the light, _don't go toward the light_."

"Shut up."

"I have it cleaned, pressed, and vacuum-sealed," Kono promises. "Although from what it sounds like, I should probably just dig out my Slutty Cop costume from Halloween a few years ago--"

"Really, you had to do that," Danny accuses.

"See you around six," Kono says and hangs up, because she never says "bye" like a normal person, she just hits the button and Danny's talked to dead air more times than he'll admit to.

Danny rolls up a few minutes early, but Kono and Chin still beat him to it, Chin looking awkward and uncomfortable in a full dress uniform. Danny suspects he's allergic to anything that isn't an aloha shirt or a henley. "So you mentioned these were," Chin makes an indecipherable chopping motion with his hand, "Steve's old team?"

"Hey, maybe we're all, like, replacements for these guys," Kono chirps.

The idea that Andy is analogous to any of them fills Danny with nausea. "Steve told me they were crazy," he starts, and Kono whistles low.

"Talk about your resident expert," she says, although she looks way too gleeful about the whole thing. "Shall we?"

They go to the door, Danny knocking for once because he doesn't really want to open suddenly on whatever terrible scene is going on in there. He saw "Weekend at Bernie's" on a sleepless Sunday three-am, and he's got haunting images of their dead teammate, whoever he is, being propped up in a deck chair with a pair of sunglasses and a fisherman's hat.

The reality is both better and worse. Better, because there's no teammate corpse on a deck chair. Worse, because there are both sunglasses and a fisherman's hat. And also there's _no teammate_.

"That's not fair," Steve says after Danny ran out of breath yelling at him in front of everybody in the living room and had to drag him into the kitchen to yell in private. "You didn't ask if he was human."

"You said he was a teammate!" Danny shouts.

"He was! Motherfucker was part of the Canine Forces. Bomb sniffer." Steve looks nostalgic. "He was great at what he did, plus he was like, our mascot."

"Plus he helped us get laid _so much_ ," D'Tonio says, poking his head in through the kitchen door. "Valuable skill, let me tell you."

"Shut up!" Danny orders, which is rude to do in someone else's house, but D'Tonio smiles like Danny's just done something cute but he goes away and that's what's really important. "Okay, one, your _teammate_ was a _dog_ , and b) --"

"You mean 'two,'" Steve says helpfully.

" _Two_ , he's stuffed!" The dog's been more than stuffed; he's got the aforementioned sunglasses and hat and an aloha shirt even Chin probably thinks is an eyesore. They're relatively new additions; the kid-sized roller skates on its front and back legs look like they've been on for a while. "Makes him portable," Andy had explained, wide-eyed and earnest.

"I'm... okay, I'm sorry?" Steve says, then ruins it by adding, "But just so you know, I don't actually know what I'm sorry for."

"Oh you're sorry for a whole lot, McGarrett," Danny promises, jerking loose his tie just as Andy sticks his head in.

"So which one of them is the stripper?" he asks Steve, frowning. "Because we asked the dude and he went kind of cross-eyed and we asked the chick and she laughed so hard she started hiccupping."

"Neither of them is a stripper," Danny yells, but that doesn't work because Andy just raises his eyebrows.

"So -- what, you moonlight?" Andy makes a considering noise. "Are you like, bendy or--"

"Nobody's a stripper!" Danny wants to say this kind of thing never happens in Jersey, but he'd had a really hot partner for three years and now he's thinking he needs to call Tracy and apologize for all the times he just laughed, because getting the narrow-eyed appraisal from someone who honestly thinks you’re a bendy moonlighting cop-stripper is ranked No. 4 on the Top Ten Batshittiest Hawaiian Experiences playlist.

"Okay, and three," Danny says after Andy's disappeared; he can hear "OKAY, NOBODY'S A STRIPPER, THIS SUCKS, DOES ANYBODY KNOW A STRIPPER DELIVERY SERVICE AROUND HERE," and "Don't even worry, I got it handled," in the background but he's trying not to split focus. "Three, if the dog's stuffed, why the fuck are you holding a funeral _now_."

"Well," Steve folds his arms, hunching a little; Danny's reminded powerfully of Grace when Rachel would yell at her about not cleaning up her room. "The thing is, Charlie just got out. So we figured it's probably a good time."

"Out, he got out -- of the Navy?"

"Of jail," Steve mumbles, squinting out the window like there's something really interesting going on out there.

"Of jail. Okay," Danny claps his hands together, "I officially -- I can't -- he's a con? You've got a convicted criminal in your house. That's, you know, it's your house, it's fine, why am I even surprised, it's only through God's will that you're not a convicted criminal, too, what, were you guys going to get matching prison tats or something?"

"No." It doesn't sound all that convincing.

"What did he do." Danny doesn't want to know, but he _needs_ to know.

***

"I agree," Danny tells Steve a few minutes later. "There's no way you could've explained this."

"Shh," Kono whispers.

All seven of them are crowded around Steve's laptop in the den, Charlie beaming brighter than a new father and nudging people at key moments during the YouTube clip of a news program from Asheville, North Carolina. The timestamp says July 4, 2009, and the reporter is breathlessly narrating the high-speed chase.

"The suspect has been cornered at the intersection of College and Market, where he, uhhh. Seems to be holding the police at bay with a nerf gun. No reports on the officer injured earlier--"

"And this is just the boring part," Charlie says, clicking down the screen. The titles of the videos he's checking are all "SEAL SEGWAY CHASE (1)" and "SEAL SEGWAY CHASE (17)," uploaded by pixiewigglesealfan, who's got a prediliction for pink and unicorns on his or her homepage. "I took a hostage for a while, he pissed himself, blah blaaaaaah -- oh, here we go. This was like, I think a couple hours later?" He clicks on "SEAL SEGWAY CHASE (END: FUCK DA POLICE)."

"Who's pixiewigglesealfan, anyway?" Chin asks.

"I don't know," Charlie says mournfully, "But I'd marry her if she asked me."

"It looks like the suspect is in fact surrendering to authorities," the newscaster says, frowning into the camera with that light sheen of sweat you always get anywhere south of Pennsylvania. The camera zooms into where about a busfull of cops are slowly approaching Charlie, who's tossed his nerf gun on the ground.

"Can we get sound--" someone mutters, and the audio goes a little wonky and Danny can hear the faint sounds of the cops screaming at Charlie to get on the ground and put his hands up, which really isn't something you can do simultaneously.

"Hey, guys," Charlie says, peaceable and somehow loud enough to carry into the cameraman's mic and through the laptop's shitty speakers. "I'm sorry, really. I didn't mean to get you all mad."

"Oh, you didn't, you fucking wetback?" says the cop furthest away from him. Danny flinches, and Kono bumps shoulders with him. "It's just a movie," she stage whispers.

"Nope." Charlie-on-the-laptop smiles, wide and bright. "I just wanted a ride. I thought it was your mom."

The clip cuts off and Danny glares at Steve, because when Steve had tried to explain that Charlie had done two years for theft of police property, he really hadn't done a good job. "Look I _told_ you," Steve replies, putting his hands up like he's the one with a busfull of cops surrounding him.

"So are we lighting Motherfucker the fuck up or what?" D'Tonio asks, just as the doorbell rings. Kono goes to answer it.

"God, please tell me that's not a stripper delivery service," Danny sighs, straightening up.

Charlie and Andy and D'Tonio blink hugely at him. "It's kind of not a stripper delivery service," Andy tries.

"Did somebody order a pair of _extra large deep dish_?" asks a husky voice from the hallway. A really tall, really blonde, _really_ tan woman in probably the least practical pizza delivery outfit ever is holding a couple of pizza boxes in one hand and a boombox in the other. Kono, peering around from behind her, is grinning at Chin for some reason.

The reason becomes apparent when Chin turns purple and sputters, " _Zoey_?"

"Ohmigod," Apparently Zoey says, in a much higher and more normal-sounding voice; she tries to cover up her porno-pizza-delivery-girl outfit with the pizzas, which goes about as well as can be expected. Kono's leaning on Motherfucker, wheezing with laughter.

Everyone piles into the first-floor bathroom so that Steve can give Zoey some ointment for her second-degree burn on her tits and Chin explains, with a hollow sort of look in his eyes, how Kono and Zoey have been best friends since birth and Zoey'd been a pro athlete, too, beach volleyball with a chance at the 2008 Olympics, until her leg was broken in five places by a drunk driver. "I used to babysit her." Chin looks like he's about to cry.

"Man up," Kono advises, "Unless you want Danny to be the entertainment for the wake."

Steve makes some kind of garbling noise and Zoey perks up. "Oh, you guys wanted a funeral striptease? I think I've got, like, a widow's veil in the car?"

***

In the end nobody strips.

Andy and Charlie bitch at each other about the bonfire, which has -- apparently -- been burning merrily this whole time on the beach without any supervision. Steve looks guilty when Danny rounds on him, but D'Tonio just puts his hand on Danny's shoulder and gives a squeeze. It doesn't hurt. Barely. "It's fine," he says. "We're professionals, yeah?"

"That would be more soothing if you didn't have a dead dog slung over your shoulder," Danny tells him.

D'Tonio shrugs and hoists Motherfucker a little higher. "I think it adds a little something to my look."

Danny points. "What's with the bald patch on his leg?" he asks.

At which point Steve blanches and escapes back toward the kitchen, where Chin was last seen getting an ice pack for his newly-sprouted migraine. D'Tonio yells, "Pussy!" after him then turns back and says, "Andy's dog."

"Andy's dog, what?" Danny says, because he thought Motherfucker was a team dog, but maybe the legalities necessitated that one person be the owner. Although these were the last guys Danny'd peg to be worried about legalities.

"Andy's dog, it's a little rat terrier named Trix, and it thinks Motherfucker's its boyfriend. Or girlfriend, whatever," D'Tonio shrugs. "Humped him so much it rubbed off the hair." He swings Motherfucker down and hoists him up on his knee, balancing on one foot. "See here? There's still a couple stains from before Trix got the snippy, he kept jizzing all over him. Nasty, let me tell you."

"I can imagine," Danny says, even though he really can't. D'Tonio claps him on the shoulder again and leads the way out through the lanai.

Kono and Zoey curl up next to the fire with some Longboards that appeared mysteriously from somewhere. They're both double-fisting but Kono generously gives him one of hers; Danny's grateful until he realizes they're talking about the rash Zoey's been dealing with.

"Apparently I've got an allergy to the adhesive in pasties," she says, heaving a sigh. "I'm thinking I'll have to suck it up--"

"I'll kill you if you even think it," Kono says mildly. Danny's about to protest that he wasn't, when he notices all three stooges clustered around them like it's Story Time. They nod solemnly.

"Anyway, I'm going to have to order some silicone-based adhesive."

"Can we see the rash?" Andy asks hopefully.

"Oh God," Steve says. Danny cranes his neck up to see Steve, oddly inverted, two six-packs in each hand.

"This is all your fault," Danny tells him. It's the one thing he's sure of.

There should probably be more ceremony involved in burning a stuffed dog on a beach, but Danny feels stupid just thinking those words in that order. Besides, about fifteen seconds after Charlie tosses Motherfucker into the flames with a gentle underhand, there's an explosion that blows embers fucking everywhere. Danny can't see, but he's pretty sure nobody's on fire when he hears a whoop and some truly insane laughter.

"Fucking _Andy_ ," Steve hollers, and Danny manages to blink enough charred ash out of his eyeballs to see Steve put Andy in a headlock. Andy's laughing and flailing and the other two are just propped up on their elbows, enjoying the show.

"I had to! Charlie wanted to get him back! I was doing it for the team!" Which is how Danny and Kono and Zoey (Chin still hasn't emerged from the kitchen) find out about a sort of classified mission in a vaguely-described country where Charlie got mildly kidnapped.

"How do you get _mildly kidnapped_?" Zoey asks, which saves Danny the trouble.

D'Tonio shrugs. "It happens. Anyway, so, bad guys string him up, buck naked, and they spread this, like, was it honey? Or something? All over his cock and balls. I think you got an infection."

"Wasn't from the _honey_ ," Charlie rumbles. "But they did it so the fire ants would, uh, yeah. You ever had your taint bitten by a fire ant?" he asks the audience at large.

Zoey says, "I get Brazillians every month."

"Respect." Charlie fistbumps her. "So they leave me there to, whatever, make peace with my Lord and the team, they're around but they can't bust in with the rescue until dawn. Meaning I'll be dickless by then."

"So princess here," Andy picks up, jerking a thumb at Steve, "Gets an idea."

"Hey, it worked," Steve says; he's on his third bottle of beer and he's starting to smile, just a little bit, and for a second Danny wonders how much of Steve stayed behind with these three psychos after he left the SEAL team.

"Yeah except, nightmares," Charlie tells him.

"Baby, you're alive with your junk intact, shut your head," D'Tonio advises. "Princess--"

"I thought your nickname was Smooth Dog," Danny says. There's dead silence for about ten seconds.

Then D'Tonio says, "No."

"Princess," Charlie says.

"Sometimes Ariel," Andy amends.

"That's only when he goes skinny-dipping in the Bellagio fountain," Charlie reminds him.

"What?" Kono demands. "You've been skinny-dipping in the Bellagio fountain?"

"Hey, isn't that the same fountain you and Ben--" Kono claps a hand over Zoey's mouth.

"I haven't done that in years," Steve protests.

"I don't think you can use the word 'years' like that when it was just two," D'Tonio says reprovingly. Steve pinks up all over and takes another swig.

"Well, he was Smooth Dog at bars," Charlie remembers, "Remember? Since he was the one who--"

"Anyway my plan was," Steve says loudly, "we needed to get the honey off without alerting the bad guys. So I took all of Motherfucker's armor off--"

"Navy SEAL dogs have armor," Kono says dreamily.

"--and his tags and everything and he snuck in that night where Charlie was strung up and he, you know," Steve makes a broad gesture. "Took care of it."

"Oh my God," Zoey and Kono say in unison. "He -- licked it off you?" Zoey asks.

"That's not the worst part," Steve says, and Charlie turns and punches him in the shoulder.

"Fuck you, Princess, you know how I like sloppy blowjobs! Why'd you have to bring that up?"

"So you--" Kono stops. "Really?"

"That's why, grenades in Motherfucker's stuffed testicular region," Andy explains.

Chin wanders out a while later, still looking terrible, and Zoey waves hesitantly at him. She’s got a GO NAVY BEAT ARMY sweatshirt on over the cleavage, but Chin confesses, dropping down next to Danny, that the cleavage is lurking underneath. "Like a sea creature under the ocean waves."

"Are you going to be okay?" Danny asks.

"If you want to ask me out you can just do that, instead of -- whatever this is," Zoey says, scooting closer. Chin groans and flops back, miraculously managing to keep his beer upright.

Kono gets to her feet and offers a hand to Danny, who's too old to pretend that sitting on sand in his uniform is fun. "We spent almost a year drunk on the beach, me and Zoey," Kono says as they walk toward the shoreline. It's dark now and Danny's not sure where SEAL Team Crazy's gone, but there's no gunfire or wailing sirens yet. "We busted ourselves up around the same time and when the doctors said we couldn't compete... we didn't have any other skills."

"Hey," Danny says.

Kono laughs at him. "I'm still smarter than you, don't worry. I just -- I mean, I stopped going to school when I was fifteen, I got my GED by the skin of my teeth while I was competing. Ian tried teaching me trig, I remember that not going well." She smiles as she dips a toe in the rising tide. "Anyway, after a year we realized we couldn't live off of self-pity, and her mom's a cop, so we were like, we can either be strippers or cops."

"And you picked cop," Danny says.

"That's what the coin said," Kono sighs. "Zoey lucked out, though."

"Yeah. Wait, what?" Danny just _doesn't want to know_ these things.

***

Danny finally finds Steve and his former teammates sprawled around the living room on various pieces of furniture. Andy's examining books from the shelves while wearing the fisherman's hat Danny recalls from earlier in the evening, and D'Tonio's methodically taking apart Steve's iPhone.

"Hope nobody needs to reach you," Danny observes mildly.

"I'm just taking out the--" and then D'Tonio says a bunch of syllables that are probably words, but it's technobabble and Danny's brain shuts down in self-defense. "That way they can't track you."

"They, who's they," Danny asks. " _We're_ they."

"We are kind of they," Steve admits, giving Danny a sleepy smile.

"But sometimes they're still after you," D'Tonio says. "So it's good to have a backup when you can't be a they."

"Right, so I'm gonna head out," Danny says. "I've got sand in places I don't want to mention."

"You should absolutely mention them," Andy says, and Danny remembers that they never did get a striptease.

"Probably a good plan," Steve tells Danny, getting to his feet. "Say goodbye to Danny, guys."

"Bye, Danny," he gets a chorus in various keys of leering, and he tries not to feel like he escaped when he closes the front door behind him. He's halfway to his car when he hears, "Baby!"

He turns around and D'Tonio's jogging up. "Uh. Yeah," he says.

"So you and Steve are partners," he says, looking serious.

"Uh. Yeah."

"And he told you about us."

"Uh. Yeah." Danny wishes he had some other words in his vocabulary.

"Great, all right. So," D'Tonio says, jamming his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his cowboy heels. "What're you doing tomorrow night?"

"Uh," Danny starts, just as Steve appears in the doorway. D'Tonio glances over his shoulder and grins at Danny.

"Gotcha. All right, tomorrow night, bar scene. Funerals always make me horny, you know?" And he's headed back into the house before Danny can do anything.

***

Chin makes really pathetic excuses, saying he can't come because he's washing his hair or something, so Danny's got Kono for backup against the Four Horsemen of the Drunkopalypse on Sunday night. They meet up at some place far down the boardwalk that most tourists walk straight past, with dirty wooden counter tops and a couple of broken light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. There's a good-size crowd, though, and a live band that sounds a little bit like the godforsaken bastard child of traditional island folk music and honky tonk—that's all right, though, because they don't seem to particularly care if anyone is listening and anyway Danny is too busy hearing about exactly how much C-4 it takes to blow up an iceberg, and how to make explosive out of bird shit and diesel fuel, and how big the cockroaches are in the sewers of a country D'Tonio isn't allowed to identify right now, but seriously, they could have bitten his fucking balls off.

"If you had—" Steve starts, but Andy leans toward Danny and jerks his finger in Steve's direction.

"Princess here," he says, "wanted us all to duct tape mosquito netting over our clothing."

"Yeah, and I was the only one without fist-sized roaches on my nuts at the end of the day, wasn't I?" Steve says. Everyone nods slowly, like they're acknowledging Steve's wisdom.

"But you know, that swelling went away after, like, two or three months," Charlie says earnestly. "We're totally fine now. Swear."

"That's. Good?" Danny asks, glancing at Steve but he's busy trying to keep Andy from finishing the sign he's writing (and where he got a marker and paper God only knows) that says "FREE ARM WRESTLE AND DICK CHOKE, ASK FOR DETAILS!" with a smiley face in place of the dot on the exclamation point. Danny has to excuse himself to go check on Kono with the next round of drinks.

"They're fucking crazy," he hisses, but Kono just laughs, balancing the tray of beers on one hand.

"They're cute," she says, and right, there's that one lost weekend a few months ago where she tricked him into getting hotboxed with her and her five BFFs from the circuit; Danny can't remember much of the evening, but he has a terrible feeling that one of them asked to make a mold of his dick for an art installation. Judging by the emails he's been getting, he probably said yes.

"I just," Danny sighs.

"Danny!" D'Tonio shouts delightedly when Danny comes back, fortified by another beer of his own.

Charlie's foot is on the table. It's bigger than the shoeboxes shoes come in. "Hey Charlie, how big are your feet?" Danny asks.

"Size five and a half," Charlie says.

"The rest of him's proportional though," Andy interjects. "Well, not like proportional, I mean he's still the size of fucking King Kong, but you've never actually killed anyone with it, right?" he asks Charlie.

"It's more like a tranq than a gun," Charlie says, letting his foot drop and spreading his legs, and Danny's really not sure when this conversation started featuring dick so prominently.

"Hey Charlie," D'Tonio says, "you should tell Danny about the worst day of your life."

"There's a worse day than the honey-on-your-balls day?" Danny wonders, but they don't hear him, and he gets to see the six-inch scar on Charlie's right bicep where the CIA made him slice off his GOD BLESS AMERICA tattoo. Charlie's eyes fill with actual patriotic tears, which is terrifying, but then the conversation segues into how an ulzzang girl talked Steve into getting a tramp stamp, which is hilarious.

"This is okay, right?" Steve asks later at the bar, slow and amused. "They're behaving."

"This is—I don't think there are words for this experience," Danny says. Steve is pretty drunk; it's not something the casual bystander would notice but Danny does, can read it in the idle swirling of Steve's finger on the bar and the way his eyes won't quite focus. Danny's own vision isn't all that clear and he's squinting to try to see how badly Kono is kicking D'Tonio's ass at paper football, which is why he can't be blamed for mostly missing what Steve says next, which is something about retirement mellowing everyone out, and shore leave, and how Steve is glad he doesn't have to play Smooth Dog anymore.

"What?" Danny says.

"Yes," Steve mumbles. Suddenly he looks up and fixes Danny with a stare. "Because I am less crazy. I was _very good_ at convincing girls to come home with us. Me. Us."

"What?" Danny says again. He casts around for the dregs of his sobriety because there's something really wrong about what Steve is saying but he can't quite get a handle on it. Steve's face scrunches up, like he's having a hard time collecting his own thoughts.

"I'm just saying, women have a very finely tuned sense of . . . whatever." Now Steve is starting to look like he wishes he could shut himself up. "So since I'm less crazy, I was like the buffer."

It clicks. "So what you're saying is," Danny says carefully, "is that like, on your little breaks, you would go to bars and lure women in with a false sense of security and then, what, fob them off on your psychopath friends?"

Steve blanches. "No! I liked them, it was more, like, my girlfriends, if they wanted, they'd -- it was more after I knew them for a while -- look. Just. Everyone had a good time. They were really into the bond of brotherhood thing — this sounds fucking terrible."

"You think?" Danny shouts. "Oh my God, what the fuck are you talking about!"

"Look, like, SEALs, you know." Steve pinches his nose. "It was a morale-booster, okay, I don't expect you to get it."

"No, no I don't get it, because it sounds like you were the ringmaster in some kind of a gangbang circus! What the—are there any arrest warrants out for you? In this or any other country?"

"What?" Steve makes a horrified gesture with his hands. "No! It was all — no, okay, it was just, that's what you did to build, whatever. Team."

There was nothing, Danny thinks, a lot horrified himself, about this spectacle of an outing that could have prepared him for the words that are coming out of Steve's mouth at this moment. And then something worse happens: he rewinds the events of the weekend in his mind, the room starting to weave a little. Suddenly, everything stops. It's a full halt, movie silence revelation; over the course of his career as a detective Danny's had a select few of these moments of crystal clarity, those rare instances where all the pieces—all the clues, all the subliminal observations, all the seemingly innocuous details—slot together to make a complete picture. "The fuck," Danny breathes, and then starts yelling all over again. "Are you saying — Steven John McGarrett, _so help me_ if your buddies think I'm the party favor of the evening," he promises, thrusting a finger into Steve's face. He vaguely remembers that the last time he did that it didn't go well, but whatever, he likes his sex one-on-one.

"What?" Steve says, "What?"

" _Partner_ , Steven, they think I am your _partner_ , and I have had a lot of conversations about cocks tonight that I am starting to get suspicious about!" Danny yells, waving his hands around and accidentally knocking over his empty glass.

"They -- you -- what," and that's pretty interesting, Danny doesn't think he's ever seen anyone literally go pale with rage before.

"So you'd better let them know," Danny continues, "That the Williams Buffet is _not open for business_ , okay, I don't care how much morale needs boosting, because that is so many levels of unacceptable—"

"CHIEF PETTY OFFICER OSTROVSKI," Steve bellows, steamrolling past Danny and about a dozen other people on the floor, making a beeline for Andy, who — Jesus Christ — not fifteen minutes ago had invited Danny to try a halo jump with him (whatever that was) and promised to take excellent care of all of Danny's equipment, and that makes so much more sense now. "OUTSIDE."

"Well," Danny says, watching D'Tonio and Charlie detach themselves from the table too and follow Steve out like scolded dogs. "Well," Danny says again. He gropes around for the bar stool and signals the bartender.

"What was that about?" Kono asks, appearing at his elbow.

"It's about how I need a million more drinks," Danny says.


	2. Chapter 2

Danny wakes up on Monday morning feeling like ripe death, and also he doesn't recognize the floor his face is plastered against, so he has a few moments of nauseated panic before Kono's feet walk into his line of vision and she kneels by his head to offer him a glass of water and an aspirin. "Meugh," he tells her gratefully.

"I don't really know what you were talking about last night," she says, "but I feel like it's important to reaffirm that I have never felt in the least tempted to quit my day job and make military-themed gangbang porno." Her phone makes a chirruping noise and she digs it out of her pocket, frowning at the display. "Neither has Chin," she reports.

"Excellent," Danny says. "Me neither."

"Never mentioning it again?"

"Never mentioning it again." Danny nods, regretting the movement when his stomach rebels.

*

All in all Danny's pretty sure he's going to die before he gets any coffee (Kono doesn't have any, just an entire kitchen cupboard full of 5-Hour Energy Boost, which explains so, so much), but Kono scrapes him off the floor and drives him to his house anyway. "Go shower, you smell homeless," she advises. "I'll tell the boss."

"Tell him what," Danny asks, but Kono's already peeled out of his parking lot. Danny stumbles into his apartment and spends the next half-hour trying to wash the alcoholic and shame out of his hair. He's half-successful.

By the time he gets into work, three cups of coffee better but that's not really saying much, Kono and Chin are hunched over the computer table and Steve is nowhere to be found. "Should I ask?"

"Called in sick," Chin says.

That fucker. "The hell?" Danny demands.

"Dude," Kono agrees. "I mean, he drank more than you, but he's him and you're you, and no way should he be in worse shape than the thing that was whimpering on my floor this morning."

"Okay, we'll address the fact that I'm only half Jewish, and thus can actually hold my liquor--"

"Uh, New Year's Eve HPD party gives different evidence, brah," Kono says.

"--later, and you're telling me Steve's got a hangover?"

Kono shrugs. "I mean," she allows, "I did drag you back to my place after you'd started comparing yourself to Roxanne, and how you wouldn't sell your body to the night, and Steve and his... friends were still drinking. But still."

"Wait he did what?" Chin interrupts.

"Lies," Danny lies reflexively, but knowing Kono she probably recorded it on her fucking phone. He hopes, in the extremely likely event that he burst into song at some point, that he was on-key.

"I think someone should go check on him," Kono finishes up, earnest.

"I agree," Chin says immediately. "Except I have that thing, right, Kono and me, the thing--"

"Yeah, we can't miss the thing," Kono says. "So hey, Danny. If you've got time. And stuff."

"Fuck you both so hard right in your faces," Danny sighs.

*

There's no sign of Steve's truck in the driveway, but Danny goes in on the theory that he probably either got a cab or, fuck, the whole team maybe walked home. Or stole more Segways. Or a herd of goats. He can hear music from inside and that's a sign of life, anyway.

Another sign is the wave -- the fucking _tsunami_ \-- of pot that assaults him the second he opens the door; it's like a cartoon billow of smoke, and Danny has the weirdest feeling like he's wading through it as he closes the door and peers through the gloom, because of course all the lights are off and the shades are drawn. Goddamn hippies, he thinks, and realizes he's turned into his father all of a sudden. "Steve?" he calls, and immediately coughs. Jesus Christ, he really cannot get hotboxed twice in six months, it's embarrassing at this point.

"De _tec_ tive," he hears, and it's Andy, draped across the balcony like a living entropic example -- energy at its lowest point. "If I were, like, into guys like that, I'd totally ask you to be my Romeo, you know? Except I'm not allowed, anymore. So I won't. Because I can't. And I wouldn't," he adds, very seriously. "But if I did, I would."

"Thank you." Maybe that's the wrong answer, considering what'd almost happened last night. "Uh, you seen Steve around?"

"Right, Juliet," Andy says, jerking half-upright before sliding down. "Woah. This is quality stuff, man. Steve's the best, you know? Takes care of his bros. And hos. He's good with bros and hos and... what was the question?"

"Steven. McGarrett. Tall, stupid tattoos. Cries at the end of _Dirty Dancing_."

"Right. The drooler with the dog!" This makes (slightly) more sense when Andy starts waving the photo album he must've had in his other hand, the one Mary had dragged out the first time Danny'd come to the house to pick up Steve after she'd gotten back to the island.

"You're cruel and spiteful and I like that in a person," Danny had told her, leafing through pictures of "STEVIE AGE FOUR AND THREE QUARTERS" sobbing after he'd skinned his knee in the backyard, or baby Steve using a long-suffering sheepdog as a walker and smiling up at the camera, a thin ribbon of drool brightly lit by the flash.

"Give me that!" Steve had yelped when he'd found them.

"Is that you in a Mickey Mouse outfit?" Danny'd demanded, holding the book out of reach while Mary had run interference.

"I was two, and shut up, and _give me that_."

"It makes me sad that I wasn't able to cockblock him in high school or college," Mary had told Danny later. "I figure I'm making up for lost time."

"Yes," Danny agrees with Andy. "The drooler. He around?"

"He's out there on the patio," Andy points maybe too enthusiastically and almost flips himself off the railing. Danny moves out of the way; he's a cop committed to protecting human life, but there are limits. "I think Charlie's winning," he says. "I mean, Steve _won_ , but Charlie's winning."

"It's like talking to one of those slot-machine psychics," Danny mutters to himself.

Out on the lanai Steve, D'Tonio, and Charlie are all sprawled in various states of stoned on the Adirondack chairs that someone's dragged up from the beach. "And _that's_ why you're racist," D'Tonio is concluding solemnly, pointing a Bowie knife that he's using to carve something that looks like a tumorous camel at Charlie.

"Uh," Danny says, because no matter what kind of surreal game it is he just walked into, it should probably involve 100% less knives. Also pot, but Danny's a realist.

"Danno! Danno danno boh banno," Steve croons, sliding half-off the chair while he reaches his arms out. "Fanno. I won."

"You won - what?"

Charlie sighs. "Princess here thinks getting baked is just like riding a bike," he says.

"I'm guessing he didn't actually win -- hi, Steven, yes, it's nice to see you too," Danny acknowledges the seven or twelve arms that Steve wraps around his waist as he comes within striking distance.

"Oh, no, he totally won," D'Tonio says. He does a complicated move with his knife and if Danny's not mistaken, the camel now has a truly enormous set of balls. "His mom's dead, so."

"Of... course," Danny says. "How does--"

"Shhhhhh," Steve admonishes, and puts his finger to his lips for emphasis. There are still at least five hands on Danny, but that could be the fumes. "Charlie's trying to get second place."

"Second--" Danny doesn't get a chance to finish the question, because Steve yanks Danny onto his lap, the way Danny'll do with Grace to make her giggle and kiss him on the nose. There will be absolutely no giggling or nose-kissing today, Danny promises, and then immediately wants to kill himself.

"Charlie's racist," Steve slur-whispers in his ear, "Because he won't fuck D'Tonio's mom."

"And that's second place?" Danny asks, because the larger question of _why are we snuggling_ and its follow-up, _why are you petting my hair_ , are really too difficult at the moment.

"Shhhh," Steve says again, louder this time.

Charlie and D'Tonio have been ignoring them for the most part; right now Charlie's got his face screwed up in thought. "Okay, but I _would_ fuck her. Like with certain, what're those, caveats. If she let me backdoor her and made me a batch of those fucking awesome molasses cookies. Then sure I would, no problem. But," he tells D'Tonio " _You're_ racist, because you won't fuck _my_ mom."

"But your mom's ugly," D'Tonio argues reasonably.

"That's cultural bias against the beauty standards of Mexico," Charlie says.

"Princess, is Charlie's mom fucking ugly or what?" D'Tonio asks.

Danny takes the momentary distraction to make a bid for freedom, but stoned Steve is still Steve, and he wraps one ridiculous leg around Danny's hips and says, "She's got that mole, Charlie. I'm going with D'Tonio."

" _Fuck,_ " Charlie snarls.

"Wait, so why is Steve in charge of who... wins?" Danny's not even sure if he's asking the right question.

D'Tonio looks baffled. "Because he's mom's _dead_ , we can't fuck _her_."

"Of course," Danny says faintly, and Steve presses his nose into his shoulder just as Andy yells at them excitedly from inside the house.

"GUYS. HOLY SHIT. PRINCESS'S MOM. GOT PICTURES."

"I keep meaning to burn that baby book," Steve sighs against Danny's neck.

"Was she fuckable?" D'Tonio yells back.

"Mary would kill you," Danny reminds him.

"THAT'S RACIST. ALSO YEAH, I'D TOTALLY DO HER SWEET AND SLOW. I'D EVEN DO HER FROM THE FRONT."

"Have to catch me first," Steve says. "'N I'm nibble. Nimbus. Nim-imble."

"Oh, clearly."

D'Tonio starts to get up, but Charlie puts his hand up in a "wait hold up" gesture and shouts, "Would you do her _in a bed_?"

"MAN I THINK I MIGHT EVEN PAY FOR HER DINNER," Andy responds.

"Damn," D'Tonio says, and him and Charlie scramble to their feet and book it inside, leaving Danny alone with Steve, Steve's lap, and a joint smoldering peacefully on the table.

"So," Danny says. "I think maybe you should let me get -- you know. Up."

Steve hums a little, something off-key, and rests his chin on Danny's shoulder. He's got his eyes closed and it's pretty clear he either didn't hear or decided to ignore Danny's request.

"Steve. Steven."

"Very noisy," Steve sighs, and leans back, dragging Danny back with him and this really, really isn't police procedure. It's comfortable, is the worst part, for all that Steve seems made of mostly skin and bones and biceps. But Danny's not really looking to relive ninth grade, when a very drunk Kenny Brewer pawed at him for a half hour at a Homecoming party before the asshole puked on his shoes and told everyone the next day that Danny Williams was a fag. He's pretty sure Steve won't puke on him, or call him a fag, but there's a general rule Danny's got now about snuggling under the influence.

"Okay, I hope you'll remember that I apologize for doing this," Danny decides, and elbows Steve hard in the stomach.

Steve makes an "oof" noise and the limbs retreat, and Danny manages to scramble out of range before Steve remembers that he's got fifteen years of military training. When he looks back, Steve's still clutching at his stomach; he looks close to tears. "Ow," he says.

Danny flees the scene.

*

"Couldn't find him," Danny reports back at HQ.

Chin frowns. "Why are you wearing a different shirt?"

"Let's just, whatever, catch some bad guys. There's some of those hanging around, right?"

"Why do you smell like Febreeze?" Kono asks. She sniffs deeply. "And Big Bud?"

"Can we please," Danny rubs his face. "Bad guys. Seriously. You do not understand how badly I need to punch somebody in the face right now."

*

Steve comes in the next day, sunglasses superglued to his face and answering all questions with various atonal grunts. Fortunately Kono's got a lead on a drug cartel using Coral Prince surf shacks out on the North Shore, and she's scary enough about it that the rest of the team doesn't really need to do much.

"Ben needs to crowbar his head out of his _ass_ ," Kono hisses while she glares at the surface table, "And realize that being a fucking hippie doesn't mean he can let Ian's company go to shit."

It looks like that's pretty much exactly what Ben's doing, but Danny keeps his mouth shut. The rest of the week is nicely boring; they follow up leads, plan a take-down for Saturday morning, and nobody shoots at Danny even once. "I'm telling you, I'm calling the Governor and getting Kono appointed head of the task force," Danny says as he and Steve are driving out to the North Shore. "I could get used to weeks like this."

Steve shoots him a look, but doesn't say anything. He's stayed quiet these past few days, but Danny's noticed an increase in jaw-clenching and eyebrow-furrowing, plus he's pretty sure Steve's developing a tic. Neither of them have broached the subject of Hey So You Seem To Like Nuzzling My Ear; he can't tell if that's helping or harming Steve's fragile mental health.

"So your buddies," Danny tries again. "They've gone home? Or wherever it is they go to when they're not lighting dead dogs on fire?"

Steve flinches, resettles his grip on the steering wheel. "Not exactly," he says.

"Not exactly -- that wasn't really a question that gets a 'not exactly' response," Danny says. "I mean, being in Hawaii is pretty much a binary state, you are or you're not--"

"Fine, they are. Still here," Steve adds.

"At your place?" Danny doesn't buy it; Steve's been way too twitchy to have been getting stoned every night.

"Not exactly -- _okay_ ," Steve interrupts himself, "No, yes, Charlie's still there but D'Tonio and Andy are staying somewhere else and Charlie's moving out in a couple days. As soon as..." and Steve fades out.

"As soon as -- what?"

"As soon as his lease is approved," Steve mumbles.

"Lease -- what? What? They're _living_ here?"

"They like it!" Steve says, defensive, and suddenly Danny knows exactly what eleven-year-old Stevie sounded like when he was arguing that the puppy'd just followed him home. "And Andy's from California, he knows how to surf and he's getting a gig with Mamo, and Charlie already got a job doing security at a bar in Waikiki, and D'Tonio--"

"Oh God, don't tell me what D'Tonio's doing, it probably involves explosives," Danny moans.

Steve sighs. "No, he got a job at the Apple Store."

"Oh my Jesus lord Christ," Danny groans. "Why. What, how, why -- why did you let them stay?"

Steve takes his eyes off the road to stare at Danny. "Let?" he repeats.

"Yes, let! You were their boss, weren't you? You certainly boss me and Kono and Chin around like we're supposed to ask how high when you say jump, and you're telling me that these guys are just, whatever, free to be you and me on Oahu?"

"You never ask how high when I say jump!" Steve argues. "You say 'why' and 'how much physical therapy will I need' and 'are you crazy,' mostly!"

"My point," Danny says, trying not to yell but with the sneaking suspicion that he's yelling, "My _point_ is that we are already running around like chickens with our heads cut off keeping the bad guys from doing bad things - if Five-0 has to start SEAL-wrangling as a side business, I'm telling you right now, I quit."

"They're not going to cause any problems," Steve says.

And of course that's when Andy calls because he needs Steve to bail him out.

"Of the _hospital_ , he needed to get bailed out of the _hospital_!" Steve argues an hour and a half later.

"A distinction without much of a difference!" Danny roars back. "You know how most people find out they're allergic to coconut trees, Steven? Do you? They try to _eat a coconut_. They do not _drill a hole into it_ and then try to stick their--"

"It was a dare," Andy protests from the backseat.

"Hey, Elephantitis-Dick, I was not addressing you," Danny snaps, pointing at Andy through the rear view mirror. He made Steve surrender the keys because you know what? If your BFF decides to fuck a coconut and finds out he's allergic to coconut mid-fuck and you decide to go retrieving him from the hospital? You revoke driving rights. Those are the rules.

*

Things happen - Matty runs away like he's always done, Jenna turns up, Danny and Rachel fall into bed again, the Governor gets killed, Five-0 gets terminated, Steve's in prison, Danny and Rachel fall _out_ of bed again, Steve's out of prison, the band's back together, Kono is off the team, Jenna disappears, Lori comes in, Kono falls in with the wrong crowd, Kono is the Hero of the Hour - and it's like that carousel Danny remembers getting sick on when he was five years old, going up and down but whirling around the same spot. Danny feels like him and Chin are the only horses that aren't moving, which is a bad metaphor because Danny picks up Steve one morning and there's a fucking _herd_ in his front lawn.

"What," he says, as a brown horse - pony? he doesn't know the difference, it's brown and it's bigger than him - tries to eat his side-view mirror.

These are not the placid animals that Steve bribed a guy fifty bucks to borrow when him and Steve and Lori were looking for that girl on Lana'i. These guys are organized - within about fifteen seconds they've got the Camaro surrounded, and any minute Danny's going to get presented with a list of demands, he just knows it. He makes his escape through the sunroof and scampers across the lawn to hammer on the front door. Steve yanks it open, sees something behind Danny, and grabs him by the arm and jerks him inside. Danny's about to protest when, over the sound of the slamming door, he hears hoofs on the porch steps.

"That was close," Steve observes, peering through the tiny window in the door.

"What the hell, most people get garden gnomes for their front yard, McGarrett," Danny hisses.

"Shut up," Steve shoots back, "Or I throw you back out there." They wait for a second, listening, and the horses apparently haven't mastered doorbells or anything because after a few minutes there's the sound of something very, very big, moving away. Danny's got some serious sympathy for those kids from Jurassic Park when they almost get eaten by that brontosaur.

Steve takes a deep breath, going from DEFCON ONE to maybe DEFCON THREE, which to be honest is probably as chill as Steve ever gets. "So, hey, good morning," Danny says.

"Hey," Steve says, focusing on him. He's still in those ridiculous flannel pjs he wears because he thinks 75 degrees is chilly, like the special hothouse flower he is, with a ratty navy t-shirt that says BEAT ARMY in faded yellow letters. His breath smells like sleep and coffee, a pretty terrible combination.

"The horses we semi-stole with Lori that one time weren't nearly so carnivorous," Danny says after a minute, because Steve's still standing really close and his hand is still curled around Danny's bicep, his thumb brushing just lightly enough to make Danny twitch, ticklish.

"Must be the cologne you're wearing, Detective," says D'Tonio from behind Steve, and really, Danny should've seen this coming.

For the past few months Danny hasn't heard much from SEAL Team Nutcases; Steve doesn't talk about them and there's no arrests made by a trio of morons trying to, whatever, steal the Kamehameha statue from in front of HQ.

There've been a couple of run-ins: the now-former owner of the bar where Charlie works was dirty, using the place as a front for some serious drug money laundering, and so Charlie let Kono, Chin, and Danny in for free one night to make a bust - Lori had to pay five bucks, though, and Steve paid full price. "You're going to shoot somebody, I can't just let that slide," Charlie said reprovingly, grabbing Steve's wallet when he handed over a twenty and taking out another couple of bills. "And the new chick looks mean. Mean girls don't drink as much."

"We're -- on duty," Lori said haltingly, eyes flicking from Charlie to Steve to Danny. "I have a gun?"

"I think this is his mating ritual, just roll with it," Danny advised her in a low tone. He cleared his throat and said to Charlie, "So, how's it going?"

"Living the dream," Charlie said, adjusting his ugly-as-fuck sunglasses. It was just past midnight. "Don't forget to tip the waitstaff."

Danny took Grace to Mamo's for a surf lesson one time, only to be confronted with Andy, bedecked in a pair of board shorts that actually hurt to look at directly. Danny hadn't thought much about what would happen if Grace met any one of the Three Stupids, because there are some things your brain just refuses to do. But Andy just rented them boards and told Gracie her daddy was a total DILF, which Gracie thought was a kind of troll, so in the long run no harm done there.

Except now, now there's definite harm, because D'Tonio's leaning against the kitchen table with something complicated and leather in his hand, looking as sheepish as SEALs are legally allowed to look. They've regrouped in the kitchen because it's the only room on the ground floor that doesn't have windows big enough that the horses could break through and eat their brains. Steve and D'Tonio seem skeptical that this will actually happen, but Danny's all about safety first - he can hear horse noises outside. Grace would know what the noises were called, knickers or snorts or something, she's got every horse book from _Black Beauty_ onward. But to Danny they just sound like horse for "Leave none alive."

"So I was playing some Texas Hold'em with Kamekona and his bros," D'Tonio says, "And you know, I won. Like I always win."

"That's because you count cards," Steve says, pouring Danny a very large cup of coffee.

"And Kamekona's nephew didn't have the money, but he owns this racing stable, right? So, boom." D'Tonio snaps his fingers and it looks like he honestly thinks that's the end of the story.

"So," Danny says, clutching the mug to his chest, "So you won six Thoroughbred horses in a game of _poker_. And you brought them _here_."

"Right," D'Tonio says. "I mean, not like they'd fit in my one-bedroom. Plus, let me tell you what, horses can't climb spiral staircases for shit."

Just then there's a pounding at the door, and Danny's barely got time to wonder if one of them figured out the knocker before Steve opens it up to reveal Charlie, carrying a big sack of grain over one shoulder. "Room service," he says.

"So they were hungry," Danny realizes five minutes later, watching a line of horses munch quietly from various bowls scrounged from around Steve's house. They're pretty calm now, swishing their tails back and forth and occasionally trying to steal from the neighboring horses' bowl, only to get smacked down. It's all very Williams-family-at-Thanksgiving.

"And not for the flesh of innocents," Steve grins at him. Danny's got to grin back, because what the hell, right?

"So there's, what, a couple thousand dollars shitting all over your yard, right?" Danny asks Steve. Steve shrugs, then nods. "Where'd D'Tonio get the money to buy into that kind of a game?"

Steve squints at him, and Danny wonders if he's crossed some kind of a line by maybe sort of implying possibly there's a chance D'Tonio might have some shady dealings. But then he shrugs again and says, "Probably just bet his hat."

"His - his _hat_? What, is it a magical hat?" Danny asks, because if Steve's talking about the same cowboy hat that D'Tonio is wearing right now - that he was wearing the first time Danny'd ever met these guys - then he's not seeing how that gets you rolling serious bank. Or whatever. Danny's not clear on the parlance.

Steve frowns. "Danny, what do you think those things around the headband are?" He makes a swirly motion around his own head, and Danny peers over at where D'Tonio is braiding one of the horses' tails.

"Ugly rhinestones?" Danny guesses.

Steve huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, no. That's about three quarters of a million dollars in diamonds."

"You're shitting me," Danny says flatly.

"Don't you have Grace this weekend?" Steve says, tsking. "You should watch your language, don't want to get into the bad habit."

"You're _shitting_ me," Danny repeats. "I thought that was a Bedazzler experiment gone wrong!"

"Is Princess telling you about how I got my hat?" D'Tonio says. Steve's face abruptly shuts down, like he's locking up before a siege.

"He says those're real diamonds," Danny says, eyeing Steve warily. "Some people have bank accounts, investment portfolios."

D'Tonio shakes his head. "No style."

"So let me guess," Danny says, "The mission where you 'found' that hat is classified."

"Found, fuck _found_ ," D'Tonio says. "I stole this motherfucker off a Mexican drug dealer, fair and square."

"He actually did turn it in as evidence," Steve says. He still looks a little stiff around the edges, like he's waiting for some bomb to go off.

"Yeah, and then _I_ stole it out of lockup," Charlie says. "No way was anybody but the team going to get that - you know how many lap dances Princess had to grind out for us to get close enough to that cartel so D could steal it?"

At the exact same time, Steve says, "Jesus fucking Christ, D'Tonio," and Danny says, "Jesus fucking Christ, lap dances?"

So it turns out Steve was kind of a hooker for a while back in '02, as part of an operation that is super classified, not just regular classified.

" _Stripper_ ," Steve insists, like that makes it any better.

"Okay, but I've seen you dance," Danny says, because no matter what Kono might imply, Danny was not the most embarrassing member of Five-0 at the HPD New Years' party. "You tried to do the MC Hammer and kicked Officer Wayans in the gonads."

"Yeah," Charlie says, "We had to fly Andy's sister in from Vegas to show him the right moves."

"Andy's sister?" Danny asks.

"She's on the pole," D'Tonio explains helpfully. "Andy wanted to go into the business, but you know. His face. So he went into the Navy instead."

Danny turns to face Steve, putting his hands out like a measuring scale. "So okay, Hell Week," he waggles one hand, "Stripper lessons," he waggles the other.

"I hate you and hope your car gets shat on," Steve tells him.

Danny laughs and leans back agains the porch railing. "So - so this whole thing, where your team takes millions of dollars out of evidence lockers, this is, like, habit-forming for you?"

Danny's half-expecting Steve to haul off and punch him for that, but actually Steve throws his head back and laughs.

"Danny," he wheezes after a few minutes, "D'Tonio stole the _hat_ from the drug lord - just the hat. Your guess is as good as mine where the hell he got those diamonds."

"I don't kiss and tell, Danny," D'Tonio says cheerfully. "I mean, unless you want me to, baby."

"Okay," Danny changes the subject, because oh God, "So assuming these aren't prime studs or whatever, what're you gonna do with them?"

D'Tonio looks wounded. "What am _I_ gonna doing with them?"

"Right," Danny says, gesturing with his mug and slopping some lukewarm coffee on a horse who promptly starts licking at its nose. "Considering they're your horses."

D'Tonio just sighs deeply and walks away, which, Danny thought of all the guys, D'Tonio was the one who most wanted to fuck him and ergo was the most inclined to be nice to him. Charlie and Steve watch him go, then turn back to Danny; Steve looks equally baffled, but Charlie looks sad.

"Look, your attitude is a little lacking, just so you know," Charlie huffs. "D got 'em for you."

"For... me," Danny says.

Steve groans and buries his face in his hands. "Why," he says, muffled.

Charlie sighs. "Your little squirt, Gracie, she likes horses, right? Little girls love horses."

"Oh no," Danny realizes. "Oh, oh no no no. Your little pal bought a dozen horses because he's _deranged_ , not because Gracie wants a pony for her birthday, we got that clear?"

"See, this is what I'm saying, with your attitude," Charlie says in this I'm-not-mad-just-disappointed tone that's giving Danny flashbacks to arguments with his Ma. "Why can't we give you nice things?"

"'We'?" Danny says, interrupted by Steve who also says "'We'?"

*

Grace names them after My Little Ponies and refuses to give up any of them. "No," she says sternly, and Danny's about to talk to her about her tone of voice when he realizes she actually said it to Applebottom or whatever, who's been trying to nibble on her braid. It blinks stupid big eyes at her and whuffles at her shoulder. It's like a horse version of Steve, Danny thinks sourly.

The horses are all corralled - according to Steve that's the right word - in Steve's backyard, hemmed in by ocean, trees, the house, and Steve's two competitively horrible vehicles. The horses have been avoiding the Marquis. Danny can understand that impulse, at least. At Charlie's and D'Tonio's insistence and Steve's big stupid eyes, Danny called Rachel to see if she could bring Grace out here to say "thanks but no thanks" to the present, which, in hindsight, he probably should've seen that not going so well.

Another one - Flutterbutter? - ambles up and noses at Grace's pockets; she obligingly pulls out a baby carrot, God only knows where she got that. "Gracie, I know you like them," Danny says, "But you can't have a half-dozen ponies as pets."

"Refusing a present is rude," she says, looking shocked and appalled and exactly like her mother. Who, speaking of which, is standing there, being no help at all.

Instead Rachel shrugs at Danny, helpless. "Perhaps Emily Post wasn't the best reading material for her on that last trip to Thailand," she admits.

"Oh, you think perhaps?" Danny retorts, but it's hard to get mad at someone who's got cankles and a maternity dress, so he just sighs and rubs his nose and says, "Okay, so."

"They can stay here," Steve pipes up from behind him; Danny swings around and Steve's got the most ridiculously casual expression on his face. He even shrugs, what the hell. "I mean, it's fine."

"Steve, eventually you will have to drive, and you can't keep stealing my car," Danny explains slowly and carefully.

Another shrug, Jesus. "I talked to Mrs. Maki across the street, she owns that vacant lot next door and she said if I paid for fencing, they could stay there," Steve says, or at least that's how Danny assumes the sentence ended because about halfway through Grace squeals at a decibel and pitch heretofore unknown to man and flings herself at Steve's waist.

Rachel pats Danny on the shoulder. "Courtship can be awkward," she says. "Stan tried to buy me an island once, terribly embarrassing."

*

Danny and Grace spend their whole weekend with Grace's new pets, interrupted by short intervals where they go back to Danny's place to do boring things like sleep and shower. "You should totally marry D'Tonio," Grace tells him on Saturday night while they're brushing their teeth. "He's a marble fox."

"Okay, first of all, it's 'stone fox,' that's the term, second of all, where did you hear that, and third of all, why am I marrying D'Tonio?" He swipes at his foamy mouth with a hand towel, then tosses it to Grace to do the same.

"Because he gave you horses," Grace says, neatly sidestepping the whole marble/stone fox issue. "And he's cool."

"You don't think I'm cool?" Danny asks, tugging on one of her braids.

Grace scrunches her nose up, considering. "I think you need some help."

"Well, what about Steve? He gave us that nice place to put your new friends. Isn't he cool enough?"

"Sure," Grace says, nodding. "You can totally marry Steve. Can I be flower girl?" She hops into her little trundle bed and snuggles down into the covers. "I'm still young enough. Emily Post says you should stick to the traditional vows, since writing your own is--" she frowns sleepily-- "Gowchy?"

"Gauche, probably," Danny corrects, but his brain is already catching up. "So you want me to marry Steve?"

Grace yawns. "If you can't get D'Tonio, I guess," she mumbles.


End file.
